


laksa asam

by painting



Category: Uncategorized - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 13:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17265401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painting/pseuds/painting
Summary: The characteristic brightness in Josh's voice more than makes up for the dusky ambiance of Arnold's still-shrouded bedroom, its curtains drawn against the impending pastel sunrise. Arnold had answered the phone with his eyes half open and can't make out what Josh is saying at first, hearing his tone over his words while knowing that the two don't often match up in the first place. Josh sometimes smiles and says a lot of nonsense when he doesn't mean it.Arnold rolls onto his back, dread splashing up from the pit of his stomach as he swallows and feels an excruciating number of sharp metal grates lining the inside of his throat. The tea he drained before falling asleep hasn't done much for the scratchiness that had set in the night before, and he can tell from its intensity that it isn't going to get better as the day sets in.





	laksa asam

**Author's Note:**

> welcome!
> 
> to people from my blog: you will not get lost if you read this fic i promise. act like theyre ocs (youve done it before without knowing)
> 
> to people who found this on the archive of our own page: sorry! if you didnt find this because you know me personally then you might get bored reading it

The characteristic brightness in Josh's voice more than makes up for the dusky ambiance of Arnold's still-shrouded bedroom, its curtains drawn against the impending pastel sunrise. Arnold had answered the phone with his eyes half open and can't make out what Josh is saying at first, hearing his tone over his words while knowing that the two don't often match up in the first place. Josh sometimes smiles and says a lot of nonsense when he doesn't mean it.

Arnold rolls onto his back, dread splashing up from the pit of his stomach as he swallows and feels an excruciating number of sharp metal grates lining the inside of his throat. The tea he drained before falling asleep hasn't done much for the scratchiness that had set in the night before, and he can tell from its intensity that it isn't going to get better as the day sets in.

Josh asks, fast and prim, "What do you think about that, Arnold? Do you think that might be a good idea or do you think it might be a bad one?"

His tone is telling Arnold to either disagree to ignite a playful argument or fake-agree to start collaborating on a hyperbolic scheme. They could go off of each other like that for hours. It's something Arnold hadn't been able to do with anyone else before he met Josh.

He isn't going to risk answering at all, though, having not processed a word beforehand, lest he make a mistake and look like an idiot at five-thirty in the morning.

Instead, he replies, "What? Sorry."

"Because I think it's just brilliant," Josh continues easily. "People show up all excited for the lunch discount only to find out it's for something they don't like, but they're already in the mood to buy something and all they can do to relieve their disappointment is get themselves a nice enormous latte and heaps of sweets from me and John. It'd have to be for something really disgusting, though, like potato salad or something, right? The kind with raisins in it. Nobody likes potato salad. Yuck."

"I think it's all right," confesses Arnold. He winces at the sting of effort it takes to speak and the grogginess left in his voice that he's certain Josh has never heard before. Arnold is always awake before Josh is, careful not to engage in conversation until his vocal cords have had a few minutes to smooth themselves out. Josh sometimes sounds scratchy in the morning, Arnold reminds himself, and he doesn't think any less of him for it. "Are you talking about offering potato salad at a coffee cart?"

"I mean, I really wouldn't have to actually _offer it_ , would I?" Josh says. "Because nobody would actually buy it."

"I think I'm getting sick," Arnold blurts out suddenly. He doesn't mean to because he doesn't think about it, but something inside of him had been unable to keep it a secret for even a moment longer.

"Oh no," Josh says. He catches him. "Well, that might be for the best. You can sample my discount potato salad and not have to worry about tasting it."

Arnold is starting to realize that Josh isn't so bad at switching gears when Arnold accidentally changes the subject. Sometimes a conversation gets to be too much of an overlap with the revolving scroll of analysis happening alongside it in his realm of focus, and before he knows it he's impulsively insisting on clearing the air of a fog that never existed. Josh can keep up with that, usually, and at worst he doesn't get upset when he isn't able to. Most of the time he cycles Arnold's topic back to the old one almost instantly, in a way that reminds Arnold to stay present and connected. He doesn't think Josh even realizes he's doing it.

"I probably shouldn't come over tonight," Arnold decides. He can't tell if he's speaking too slowly or not. He hasn't spoken to someone this soon after waking up in who-knows-how-long and he doesn't like how it feels or how it sounds. Only one side of his nose is clear, and he doesn't anticipate it staying that way for much longer.

"Why?" Josh asks.

What does he mean _why?_

"What's wrong? Do you mean— are you, like, really sick?"

He shouldn't have said anything. He should have made up another excuse or something. Now Josh is going to worry about him.

"No! No, I mean, no, I'm really fine," Arnold says. "I think it's–"

"Oof. You do not sound fine," Josh interrupts.

"I think it's just a cold," Arnold finishes. He can't tell if Josh really can detect the heaviness in Arnold’s voice or if he's teasing. "I just meant, you know–"

"Then why aren't you coming over?" Josh asks. He sounds like he's confused, but also like he's happy about being confused, which Arnold senses from him often but doesn't entirely understand. Maybe Josh knows the answer already and just wants Arnold to explain it himself.

"I just mean, you know, like– like I'm probably contagious," Arnold says.

"Oh," Josh says. "Are you worried about Tom getting sick? Tom isn't going to get sick. You don't have to worry about Tom getting sick."

"I don't want you to get sick either."

"Well, I'm already just so, so sick," Josh says. Arnold can hear him smiling. "I kissed you yesterday when you were just as contagious and now all of your germs are in my body and there's just nothing we can do about it. So are you still feeling up to dinner tonight?"

"I don't know," Arnold says. He doesn't want to say no, because the alternative is sitting alone and sick in his room with nothing to do but think about how sick he is. The idea has less allure than sitting in Josh's living room worried about losing his voice or leaving tissues everywhere or sneezing too loudly or just generally having everyone fuss over him, but only slightly and also in a completely different way. It's a choice between stress and boredom, but Arnold supposes it's better for him to be stimulated than lonely. It'd feel worse to have Josh think of him as a flake and a liar.

"Unless you're just really bad at making excuses," Josh continues. "Well, no– Well, I don't think that's true, because you sound really dreadful, Arnold, you're sounding just so awful."

Arnold frowns. He squints into the darkness and hopes that Josh is exaggerating or that his consonants will clear up once he's had something hot to drink, even if speaking remains painful for the next couple of days. "I just woke up."

"Yes," Josh agrees. "Yes, I don't think you're faking at all. You've never slept in like this. It's almost six. Maybe you are too ill to come into my house after all, you know, I might not want to risk it, what do you think?"

Arnold sits up and feels everything inside of his face shift and decides he needs to take something before he leaves the house.

"Okay," he concedes. "Yeah. I'll swing by later."

"If you come by my cart I'll give you a special treat for your terrible throat. But I'm not going to tell you what it is until you come and pick it up."

"It's not chamomile tea, is it?" jests Arnold.

"You think I would serve you chamomile tea in your time of need? Don't be crass. It's not that. I'll even share it with you to prove to you how not-chamomile-tea it is. Okay? One sip from my magical elixir and you'll be feeling better by night time."

"I don't think that's how it works," says Arnold, even though he wishes it did.

"It might if you have some faith in me and my elixir." Josh shuffles around on the other line and says, "I have to go, okay? I have to get ready to leave. I'll call you in an hour."

"Yeah," Arnold says. Sometimes Josh can be abrupt too. It makes Arnold feel a little better about that part of himself. "Okay, yeah, talk to you–"

The line goes dead. Arnold, satisfied with his decision, can feel his chest and shoulders drop.

 

-

 

Arnold spends a long time making himself presentable enough to face the public, practicing his posture and trying to school his face to seem like he's got far more energy and focus than a sick person would. This way, he thinks, no one is going to judge him for choosing not to quarantine himself in his bedroom or feel sorry for him for having to go out while he isn't feeling well. At most, he might seem a little off his game to someone who knows his baseline well enough to tell the difference.

He ruins the illusion by sneezing almost directly after arriving at Josh's cart, once they've said hello to each other and barely anything else. His abdominal muscles clench with pressure as he twists away and does his best to suppress it as much as he can, his hand held up against the side of his face like a shield between Josh's gaze and Arnold's unguarded expression.

Josh says something about it, but Arnold can't exactly listen because his breath hitches twice and then he's busy sneezing again. The second one is harder to manage, tumbling out of his metaphorical grip as he braces himself to keep it from bending him in half. He doesn't feel better afterward – sometimes he does, but not this time – and sniffles reflexively as he feels the heavy weight of Josh's hand settling on his shoulder.

" _Wow,_ " Josh says, punchy and playful, before Arnold gets a chance to excuse himself. "You weren't kidding when you said you had a cold, were you?"

He moves his hand downward to hold Arnold by the waist. Arnold's perplexed that Josh would want to be closer to him after that, and has to remind himself to keep from leaning away like his mind is saying Josh would want him to.

With Josh all over him, Arnold can't reach in his bag to grab a tissue, so he holds his sleeve in front of his face for privacy and sniffles again. That's fine, he supposes, because it isn't like he would want to blow his nose while on display like this anyway.

"Yeah," he says. Most of the worry he had about Josh changing his mind about spending time with Arnold while he was sick has dissipated. "They always come on fast like this, but I'm okay. Um, how's all of this going? Has your dad stopped by yet?"

Josh lets go to rub Arnold's back up and down just once, then he reaches over and hands Arnold a napkin from the neat little stack on the edge of his cart. Arnold doesn't know whether to turn away and use it so as to not be rude about Josh's offering, or hold it near his nose for the show while sniffling uselessly as he remains facing Josh. Because Josh is about to speak, Arnold thanks him and politely chooses the latter.

"I don't think he's coming today," Josh says. He moves away to pour something from a pitcher into a paper cup before adding some boiling water. Arnold takes the opportunity to squeeze his nose with the napkin and wipe delicately against the underside to tide himself over until after he's by himself and can blow his nose properly. "He was supposed to have a meeting or something. I'm not exactly sure because the details of it aren't actually, you know, aren't actually super important to me."

"Another day to think up a new business venture, then," Arnold says. His nose is still running, and he sniffles again even though it's not going to make him sound any better. "What if you started selling something really disgusting? People are doing that now; posting the most atrocious concoctions on the menu and then people buy them just for the novelty."

Josh adds two tea bags into the cup and says, "Wow, you mean like, what, like a potato salad cappuccino?"

Josh's idea catches Arnold off guard. He smiles.

"Why does the potato salad keep coming up?"

"I just saw a recipe on Facebook last night and I didn't like it. On one of those sped-up recipe videos. I watched the whole thing and I just didn't like it."

"Do you think it'd be better or worse in a cappuccino?" Arnold asks, making an effort to keep his voice steady. He's getting some warning, so he doesn't know why he decided to rush to get the question out before sneezing instead of prompting Josh to answer before Arnold inevitably turns away and interrupts him anyway.

"Oh, much better, definitely," Josh says without hesitation. Then he says something about the strength of the espresso being an important varying component in their hypothetical refreshment, and then he's being cut off mid-word by Arnold and the symptomatic details of his late-Spring cold.

He barely manages to gasp out a remarkably disruptive "wait—" before gasping again and turning away from Josh and toward the sidewalk, grateful for the napkin Josh had handed to him before. The first part of the sneeze is controlled just fine, but the second half, vocal and expressive, barrels past his defenses. The next sneeze is identical to the one preceding, the both of them spaced less than a second apart.

"Sorry," he says urgently on the exhale, before he's even turned back around.

Josh touches his shoulder blade and says "Oh no, Arnold!" in a way that sounds minimally sympathetic and mostly unconcerned. Arnold feels a lot less self-conscious because of it.

 

-

 

By the time Arnold makes it to Josh's house that evening, he's had a nap and a walk and a full dose of non-drowsy Codral but he’s only finding himself feeling worse and worse. Sometimes that's just the natural progression of things, but there's something so acutely frustrating about doing absolutely everything right and still coming out with your head underwater.

He'd messaged Josh earlier to let him know about his status, subliminally making sure that Josh still wanted to see him for dinner now that he was thoroughly down with a proper head cold instead of just a sore throat and some sporadic sniffling. All Josh said back that he was making the laksa extra spicy so Arnold would be able to taste it. He didn't think to ask Arnold whether he liked spicy food to begin with – and he didn't love it, not especially – and the implication that Josh was intending to give Arnold a runny nose on purpose because it might make him feel better is more than Arnold knows how to handle. It feels almost selfless on Josh's part, to sacrifice seeing Arnold in an attractive state for the sake of Arnold's own comfort. That seems like something you only did after you'd been with a partner for decades, once you'd started to grow old together, because by then seeing them in an unattractive state was kind of inevitable.

But here Arnold is, young and spry with his hair shiny and skin still clear and tight, his nose pink and chest sore and eyes glassy and dazed, willfully exposing himself and his condition to someone for whom he has romantic intentions and consciously accepting an invitation into his home.

It's not something he would have done a year ago. Probably not even a month ago. But he's here tonight.

"Hi!" Josh chirps when he opens the front door. The soft yellow light illuminated behind him makes his home look like the kind of place you could just sink into if somebody let you. Arnold might have fantasized about it if his nerves weren't on edge from all the cold medicine and from their general disposition to be on edge no matter what the circumstances.

"Hi," he says back, using the same amount of pleasantness at half the volume.

"You're right on time," Josh says. He steps aside so Arnold can come in. "I mean, like, you're _right on time._ Literally, right on the dot. As the clock struck six, you were here, just perfectly punctual. Do you do that on purpose?"

Arnold wants to kiss him, but he doesn't know if it's allowed. They had kissed a few times earlier when Arnold was visiting Josh at work, but he isn't sure if things might have changed now that he's sicker.

"I usually leave ten minutes early," Arnold tells him, "in case of an emergency or something. So I actually got here ten minutes early."

Josh grants his wish, cupping Arnold's left cheek and then his right, stroking it with his thumb as he bends down to kiss him for a couple seconds.

"How are you feeling?" Josh asks conversationally when they part. He turns around and lets Arnold follow him into the kitchen.

"I dunno. How do I sound?" Arnold asks back, his inquiry a genuine one. He once heard that you sound so much worse to yourself because you can hear all of the details with your ears so close to your mouth, and most people wouldn't pick up on a change unless it was really exceptional. He doubts that could be true for him now.

Josh says, "You sound like you have a head cold. Tom!" He walks past the entryway and out of Arnold's line of sight. "How do you think Arnold sounds?"

Arnold walks in after him and sees Josh standing near the tall white fridge covered in what looks like a dozen lawlessly arranged magnets, reaching into the cupboard for bowls. Tom is sitting at the kitchen table looking at something on his phone, blissfully unhelpful. Arnold admires him for it.

"Hi, Arnold," he says.

"Hi, Tom."

"He sounds fine."

"Do you need any help?" Arnold calls.

"No, no," Josh insists. He sets their bowls down on the counter and heads over to the food simmering and steaming just a few steps away. "No, just sit down, do you want anything to drink? We've got, like, riesling…?"

"Riesling's good," Arnold says. "Riesling sounds good."

"Okay."

Arnold joins Tom at the table. With someone else, he might try to make small talk, especially this early on in a relationship where things are friendly but still unfamiliar, but he realized early on that this household seems to be more comfortable with silence than Arnold is used to. Banter with Josh seems to happen naturally, so Arnold lets Tom continue his leisurely scrolling and watches Josh add vegetables from a dish into the food he's got boiling. Arnold feels fortunate that everyone seems relaxed, with no apparent need to be entertaining or extravagant in his company.

Aside from some tapping and dropping and the occasional scrape of something against the edge of metal, the room is mostly quiet for what seems to be the entire duration of this portion of the evening but is actually just a fraction of a moment. Josh is pulling spoons out of one of the drawers when Arnold sneezes for what feels like – and probably isn't actually – the hundredth time that day, barely bothering to try and hold it off because at this point he knows it'd be a waste of his time.

He still makes the effort to throw a hand up and curl into his shoulder as he attempts to keep the outburst contained and quiet. He feels one of his feet nearly lift off the ground with the force of it.

"Bless you," Josh says cheerfully. He looks over his shoulder. Tom doesn't say anything, doesn't even look up, which Arnold is kind of glad about because it means he hadn't minded.

"Thanks," Arnold says. He looks up to make eye contact with Josh, who smiles mildly and starts to ladle everything into their bowls and add fresh vegetables into each one.

Surprisingly, that seems to be an ice breaker. Josh uses the momentum to ask Tom what he thinks about getting chopsticks and using them to eat things they wouldn't normally eat chopsticks with, which extends into a conversation about other activities someone might be able to use chopsticks for. Josh demands Arnold join him in berating Tom's idea of using them to change the channel on a television from a distance because everything— _everything_ , he emphasizes— responds exclusively to a remote control these days.

" _I_ know," Tom says, "But I mean, like, fifteen years ago."

"We aren't talking about fifteen years ago, we're talking about right now!" Josh proclaims.

"Okay. So that was never established," Tom says.

Josh pours himself a glass of wine and then has Arnold hand him his glass so he can serve him too. While Josh is pouring, Arnold stares toward the ground, takes a deep, involuntary breath, and sneezes against the fabric of his sleeve.

"Oh, god. Sorry," he says afterward, because it feels like he should say something.

"Don't be– uh, bless you– uh, no, don't be sorry," Josh says. Arnold notices Tom look at Josh like he's done something strange.

"Thanks," Arnold says. Josh sets the glass down in front of him. "Uh, food looks good."

"Yeah, why'd you pick Malaysian?" Tom asks.

"I dunno, Malaysian's fun, Malaysian's exciting," Josh says in a way that sounds almost defensive, but also like he meant for it to sound that way. "I saw an ad yesterday for a cruise around Malaysia and it made me want to eat something from Malaysia."

"Have you been to Malaysia, Arnold?" Tom asks. "Does this taste Malaysian? It's good, but does it taste Malaysian?"

"I've never been to Malaysia," Arnold says. "Or on a cruise."

"I don't get cruises," Josh declares. "It's like, you go on a boat the size of a hotel and it's full of, like, hotel activities and old people, probably, and then you're meant to just stay there for two weeks and look at the ocean. It just seems like you'd run out of things to do rather quickly."

"I think it stops in different cities along the way." Arnold doesn't know very much about cruises. "That way you can get off and, like, explore the seaport towns."

"I wouldn't want to do that," Tom says. "You could forget to get back on and then you'd be trapped in a strange land."

"A strange land?" Josh repeats.

"Why do you think you'd forget to get back on?" Arnold asks. He talks over Josh, accidentally. A quick glance at him tells Arnold it wasn’t even a problem.

"I mean, what if you got distracted?" Tom muses. "Then all your stuff's on this giant sailing hotel and you're stuck by yourself in a strange land."

Arnold tries the dish and finds out that it does to him exactly what he thought it would, but he doesn't mind using the napkin Josh set out for him to tend to it every so often because nobody says anything about that either. The food is loud and colourful, the kind of flavor that Arnold's able to feel in his mouth even though he can't taste it very well. It's nice. It's different. He's used to swallowing down blandness while sick, forgoing exciting recipes under the pretense that it might be a waste of ingredients if he didn't have the sensory access to enjoy them, especially with his energy diminished in a way that doesn't make him want to cook at all. Tamarind and chili peppers are turning out to be so much more satisfying than an apple or toast with butter.

He can feel himself wincing less each time he swallows; something about the spices Josh used is having a numbing effect on his throat as the burn it provides spirals with and overrides the raw sting that had been bothering him so much before. It makes the wine go down easier, which reminds Arnold that he probably should be drinking water alongside it. He can get to it later.

Eventually, after plenty of conversation and laughing and jabbing and too much sniffling on Arnold's part that Josh and Tom have continued to gracefully ignore, Arnold reaches a point where the tingling inside of his face and stomach becomes more overwhelming than soothing. He decides to put his utensils down instead of picking at the last one-fourth of the food left in his bowl while he waits for Josh and Tom to catch up, then he assures everyone that it was great, he's just full, and Josh takes Arnold's bowl from him and pours its contents down into his own without a second thought about contamination. Arnold's flattered by it, in a weird way, more than he wonders how Josh stays so healthy if he's always doing things like that.

They conclude their meals. On his way to the sink, Josh pauses, still speaking, and rests his hand on the back of Arnold's neck for a moment and rubs up and down with his thumb a couple of times. He accepts Arnold's offer to help clean up, establishing Arnold's status at the house as familiar company instead of just a guest, and halfway through it Arnold excuses himself so he can head to the bathroom, run the tap and blow his nose. By the time he's finished, the kitchen's been vacated and Josh is off rearranging something in the living room.

“Arnold, we’re watching Casablanca!” he announces. He straightens up and beckons Arnold closer, wrapping an arm around his waist in the kind of quick and casual side-hug that Arnold would only allow from someone he’d known for weeks.

“Is it very good? I’ve never seen it,” he says with his head resting against the front of Josh’s shoulder. He lifts it off when Josh unwraps himself and reaches for the remote.

“I know you’ve never seen it. That’s why we’re watching Casablanca,” he says. “It’s incredible. It's a classic. Watching Casablanca makes you a more well-rounded member of society. I’m doing you a favor by having you watch it.”

“How did you know I’d never seen it?” asks Arnold. His voice is still sounding so, so thick, and he resigns himself to the predictive misery of knowing that there’s not going to be anything he can do about it until his body is done fighting whatever it is that he’s come down with.

“I mean, you…” Josh looks him up and down and makes a tight, unfamiliar gesture with his hand. “I mean, maybe you’re well rounded, I don’t know, I mean, like… of course you haven’t seen it, you just have the look of someone who hasn’t seen Casablanca.”

“What 'look'?”

“I’ve seen it,” Tom says. He’s sitting on the red couch that faces the television, so Arnold sits on the one off to the side and clears his throat to keep from coughing.

“Yes, but you’re not very well rounded.”

“I’m perfectly rounded.”

“Mm, no, I don’t think so.”

“I am. I just think there’s too much going on.”

“It’s, like, the highest rated movie of all time, Tom,” argues Josh.

“There’s just, like, I don’t know, like that weird love triangle…”

“Oh my god, Tom! You’re not supposed to spoil it.”

“You said you wanted to watch something with subtitles turned on so we could talk over it,” Arnold says. “Maybe it’s better if I know more about what’s going on beforehand so I won’t get lost watching Casablanca.”

Tom nods at Arnold like he’s tipping a hat that he isn't wearing. Arnold feels his eyebrows fly up in acknowledgement as he smiles, jerking slightly with a solitary chuckle.

“We could have talked about how surprising the love triangle was. It could have so easily been a riveting conversation,” says Josh as he sits down next to Arnold, close enough for their thighs to touch, and extends an arm toward the television to start the film. Arnold settles back against his chest. In contrast to his initial feelings of uneasiness at the exposed space around Josh’s coffee cart when it first opened just a couple weeks ago, Arnold is mostly unworried about PDA in front of Tom. There’s a safety here that he doesn't feel in most places, but one that he notices growing with exposure and practice, as most things do.

As perfect as conditions are, though, watching Casablanca quickly becomes a problem for Arnold.

There’s nothing wrong with the movie itself, as far as he can tell; it’s tasteful and well-crafted enough for him to see why Josh likes it, but his focus is minimal, stolen by a tenacious urge to sneeze, then sneeze again, and then only continue on needing to sneeze in a way that seems to be miserably insatiable.

The first one comes on maybe ten minutes after the opening credits, which are long and extravagant. He’s able to stifle most of it just fine, aside from the vivacious release, a fist coming up halfway to his face as his head bobs forward and his shoulders shudder. After a beat, Josh turns his head and neutrally says “bless you” with a surprising hush to his voice that feels like the moment’s only for them. Arnold symmetrically whispers his thanks, unsure as to why it feels so private when they’d been making commentary at a normal volume just moments before.

Not even five minutes pass before Arnold's body reaches its threshold again, the desperation in his breath tugging his voice out along with it and making Josh and Tom both turn to look at him. Since they’ve already noticed, Arnold doesn’t put as much effort into subduing this one and muffles it into the tightly-pressed fabric of his sleeve.

"Sorry, excuse me," he says, since the attention is already on him, even though he knows he's going to have to sneeze again soon. Josh and Tom let it go. Arnold is gaining confidence in the idea that no one is going to want to comment on every last feature of his affliction; he supposes there really isn't much to say about it in the first place, so there wasn't much of a reason to get worked up over thinking that they might.

Soon turns out to be immediately, and the third sneeze is smothered similarly to the second. He feels Josh delicately rubbing the side of his arm while he reaches into his front pocket for the unopened packet of travel tissues he’d bought after leaving Josh’s cart that morning.

With everyone occupying the same space and engaged in the same activity, Arnold is essentially trapped. He knows he it would be inappropriate to run off just to blow his nose, drawing attention to himself and making him look neurotic, but asking for an extra tissue or napkin or something, should he run out, would require Josh or Tom to get up and fetch them for him. That would be easily more disruptive than getting out of his head and blowing his nose at in the living room.

He unfolds the sheet in his hand and does so – not all the way, but enough to help him breathe a little better and feel a little cleaner. It does absolutely nothing to stop him from needing to sneeze, which he wishes he could get over with as many times as his body needs him to before giving him a break again, but there isn't a lot Arnold can do about that until the fit has run its course.

The fourth sneeze is unstoppable, but hopefully also about to put an end to the whole episode. It catches Arnold off guard and jolts him forward with a ferocity that feels and probably sounds like it's being pushed out of him. It's not as bad as it could have been, because everyone knows he's sneezing, so nobody is going to be startled or concerned, and he was able to at least contain it even if he couldn't bottle it up like he would have preferred.

" _Bless_ you," Josh says to Arnold and to the whole room, in a tone that would imply Arnold had just accomplished something grand aside from just a sneeze. He brushes a hand down the top half of Arnold's arm in a way that feels like it's supposed to be reassuring.

"That was like a lion being let out of its cage," comments Tom. Arnold feels himself smile. "Why don't you just sneeze like that all the time? I bet it feels so much better."

"Tom," admonishes Josh, "don't, like– don't tell somebody how to sneeze."

"Does it?" pushes Tom.

"Yeah," Arnold says right away, because there's no use in lying about something like that. "I mean– it's not usually more comfortable to do anything the polite way. That's part of why politeness exists as a construct."

"You don't have to be polite _here_ ," Josh says. If Arnold wasn't right next to him, he'd think Josh was shaking his head as though the notion itself is ridiculous, even though it's perfectly reasonable to want to want to try and make a good impression while visiting the home of somebody you've just started dating. "I mean, like, not about that at least. You're ill, so you're just doing what you're supposed to be doing, you don't have to be polite about it."

"I thought politeness was about, like, following rules," Tom says. "And, like, being considerate of others."

"Yeah," Arnold agrees. "But you follow the rules to show that you're making an effort for someone else's sake. It's more comfortable not to have to bother."

"Sometimes it's _more_ comfortable to be polite," Josh argues. "Like when you just know that being honest with somebody is going to get them upset and make them start fighting with you, you'll use politeness to, like, make things easier on yourself, you know, that's more comfortable."

"That doesn't sound like anything you've got any experience with," Tom says flatly.

"What? Oh, _I'm_ polite," Josh says. "I'm polite. I'm plenty polite, I've been perfectly polite all evening."

"Have you?" Tom says. He tilts his head tauntingly.

"Yes," Josh insists confidently. "Haven't I, Arnold?"

Arnold has to clear his throat before chipping in, saying, "I think Josh has great manners. He– um– he came and answered the door right away. I barely had to wait even a second."

"You've set the bar awfully low for Josh's manners," Tom says to Arnold, who feels like he's part of the human version of those ensemble puppies who play-fight while in a cage either because it's genuinely stimulating or there's not much else to do. This case feels like the former; a case of arguing for sport instead of for the sake of just picking at each other. People very rarely treat Arnold that way, even after he's shown them that he's willing to join in, but with Josh and Tom it's been different since the beginning.

"What about you, Tom?" Arnold challenges. "It doesn't seem like yours have got a bar at all."

Next to him, Josh says "boom!" in concurrence while Arnold coughs twice against his scratchy throat. He reaches for his mug of tea on the coffee table and feels like he belongs.


End file.
